The Portland Project recently gained attention by announcing plans to
create an additional set of standards for Linux desktop environments such
as GNOME and KDE. Sri Ramakrishna explains its aims, gleaned from a
conversation with one of its lead architects, Waldo Bastian.

With the release of GNOME 2.14, a new applet has been made available for
the GNOME Panel: Deskbar. Deskbar is the all-in-one action bar, yet despite
the name and its appearance, very few people actually know what it does, or
how to use it. Davyd Madeley takes a closer look.

Continuing with his series about people who contribute to GNOME, Lucas
Rocha interviews Elijah Newren, the GNOME release manager. Elijah talks
about computational biofluid dynamics, Metacity and other GNOME topics.

The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) have always been a controversial
topic among fans and third-party developers. Claus Schwarm shows you why
the HIG is important and some subtle ways in how to utilize the HIG in
simple but not always obvious ways.